New 2025 Data Reveals the Most (and Least) Visited National Parks in the U.S.

The National Park Service (NPS) just published its annual visitation numbers for 2025, revealing exactly which national parks welcomed the biggest crowds—and where you can go to escape them.

According to the March 13 dataset, the U.S. national park system welcomed 323 million visitors in 2025, about 8.8 million fewer than in 2024. Despite this drop in visitors, 26 of the 433 sites in the NPS system—which includes national parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, recreation areas, preserves, and seashores—broke all-time records for visitation.

“America’s national parks continue to be places where people come to experience our country’s history, landscapes, and shared heritage,” said Jessica Bowron, whose title with the NPS is comptroller, exercising the delegated authority of the director, in a recent press release. “We are committed to keeping parks open, accessible, and well-managed so visitors can safely enjoy these extraordinary places today and for generations to come.”

Here’s where you can go to meet and beat the crows in 2026.

America’s Most Popular National Parks

America’s most-visited national parks weren’t exactly surprising. Tennessee and North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park topped the list—as it has for decades—with more than 11 million visits. That’s down by nearly 600,000 visitations from 2024.

The Smokies were followed by Zion, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite, four other parks that are almost always in the top 10.

1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina (11.5 million visitors)
2. Zion National Park, Utah (4.9 million)
3. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (4.7 million)
4. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (4.4 million)
5. Yosemite National Park, California (4.2 million)
6. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (4.1 million)
7. Acadia National Park, Maine (4 million)
8. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming (3.8 million)
9. Olympic National Park, Washington (3.5 million)
10. Glacier National Park, Montana (3.1 million)

Skip the Crowds for These Remote Parks

Perhaps more enticing is a vast, open park void of other people. If you’re looking to escape the crowds in 2026, these five parks might be a good place to start.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, four of the five least-visited parks in the U.S. are in Alaska. Topping that list was Kobuk Valley National Park, sitting 25 miles north of the Arctic Circle in northwestern Alaska. Kobuk saw just 7,786 visits in 2025, a dramatic drop from its already scant 2024 visitation (17,233).

Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve saw the next fewest visitors (14,923), followed by Lake Clark National Park and Preserve (19,778).

The fourth least-visited national park in 2025, and the least-visited in the Lower 48, was Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park. The park, which logged 29,091 visits last year, sits on a remote cluster of islands in Lake Superior near the Canadian border, so visitors can only get there by ferry or seaplane.

After Isle Royale, Katmai National Park and Preserve, a peninsula park in southern Alaska renowned for its massive brown bears and thriving salmon runs, saw 34,479 visits in 2025.

1. Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska (7,786 visitors)
2. Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska (14,923)
3. Lake Clark National Park, Alaska (19,778)
4. Isle Royale National Park, Michigan (29,091)
5. Katmai National Park, Alaska (34,479)

Another one of the least-visited national parks might surprise you—the North Cascades. This glacier-filled park, less than three hours from Seattle, drew only 46,925 visitors in 2025. Meanwhile, Olympic National Park, just a few hours away, was one of the most crowded parks in the country, with more than 3.5 million visitors.

Only two other national parks saw fewer than 100,000 visitors in 2025: the National Park of American Samoa (sixth with 43,258 visits) and Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park (eighth with 89,355 visits).

American Samoa offers remote South Pacific coral reefs and volcanic ridges, while Dry Tortugas, accessible only by boat or seaplane, features vibrant marine life and a massive 19th-century coastal fortress, around 70 miles off the coast of Key West. If you’re looking for a crowd-free park experience in 2026, these hidden gems are worth checking out.

The complete 2025 visitation data is available on the NPS website.